Voltage-controlled power semiconductors are used in many types of power electronic circuits, such as buck and boost converters, inverter circuits for motor drives, half bridge and full bridge circuits, resonant circuits, etc. In some cases, e.g. short circuit detection by gate charge or by measuring the simultaneous behaviour of di/dt and the gate voltage of the power semiconductor, the actual gate voltage of the power semiconductor must be measured accurately. However, parasitic inductance and gate resistance prevents accurate measurement as the gate voltage measured between the gate and emitter/source terminals of a power semiconductor package, assembly or module includes voltage drop from the parasitic components. Yet, some parasitic inductance in the emitter/source is intended to be part of the gate circuit for limiting di/dt. Gate resistors are also integrated within packages or chips to dampen internal oscillations within the power circuits or gate circuits.
In some conventional approaches for measuring the actual gate voltage of the power semiconductor, gate voltage measurements taken during the time in which a voltage drop from parasitic components exists are not used for detection. Instead, this time is blanked out and no decision on a fault occurs, which would need to be measured through the gate voltage. In other conventional approaches for measuring the actual gate voltage of the power semiconductor, the gate circuit and the power circuit are designed to be nearly free of parasitic inductance and no gate resistors are integrated inside the package which may not be ideal or even feasible in many cases. Semiconductor packages, assemblies and modules with more robust provisions for measuring gate voltage are desired.